The Great Chili Confrontation; A Dramatic History Of The Decade's Most Impassioned Culinary Embroilment, With Recipes
Smith, H. Allen
Before cooking competitions on reality TV, a 1967 throwdown chili cookoff, commemorated in The Great Chili Confrontation,
rocked the state of Texas and led to today’s World Chili Champion
Cookoff (WCCC). When humorist H. Allen Smith wrote “Nobody Knows More
About Chili Than I Do” in Holiday magazine, protesting cries
erupted from the Lone Star State at the effrontery of a Midwesterner
claiming superiority at their state dish. So in October of ’67 in
Terlingua, Smith went head to head with Wick Fowler for the
championship. It was declared a tense tie. Soon, the International Chili
Society established by-laws for the now annual WCCC, roving across the
U.S. and attracting thousands of visitors. That growth couldn’t have
happened without the original advertisement for the cookoff: The Great Chili Confrontation.
Smith’s recounting of the event contains recipes, poetry, letters, and
enough bluster to cool off the hottest bowl of 5-alarm chili.